BE A CAPTAIN – Someone needs to bring everyone together. If you’re the person with connections, your ability to spread the word to find 3D printers, volunteers, and donations will be the key.
FIND A COORDINATOR – Someone who is organized and great with logistics.
RECRUIT PEOPLE WITH 3D PRINTERS – Growing your PRINTER network will be the challenge; email newcaptain@americanhigh.com to receive our growing list of printers who have signed up in your community. Beyond that, grow the network however you can. We used social media to build our network of professionals and hobbyists with personal 3D Printers at home and loaned 3D Printers that we setup at our facility with volunteer operators. To help encourage those printing from home, we suggest you provide the necessary materials so they can continue printing without being discouraged by spending their own money. (EXAMPLE DROP OFF FORM.)
PRINT THE PLANS – Our amazing partners at Budmen Industries created and shared face shield printing and assembly instructions that can be found HERE. A step-by-step assembly tutorial video can also be viewed HERE.
GATHER MATERIALS – Each face shield can be assembled with materials readily available from your local hardware store, Home Depot, Lowe’s or various online retailers. See the SUPPLIERS LIST for purchase links.
FIND YOUR SAFE WORK SPACE – This could be a school, stage, library, gymnasium, office building, etc. — As long as there’s space for table top printing and room for people to be 15 feet apart for social distancing. Workstations, of course, need to be sanitized.
RECRUIT YOUR TEAM TO ASSEMBLE THE FACE SHIELDS – We had volunteers work in 4 hour shifts, supplied with gloves and masks, to assemble face shields. The quantity of volunteers you need will be limited by how many 3D printers you have printing. It takes 58 minutes to print one shield and only 5 minutes to assemble.
DELIVERY – Visit www.getppe.org to register as a face shield provider. The organization collects orders from all around the country and will coordinate with you directly for the drop off location of your face shields.
FUNDING – We donate all of our masks. To pay for PLA filament and other non-printable components, we established a go-fund me page. We encourage you to do the same for your team. Feel free to model your page after ours HERE. The materials are inexpensive and all labor is done on a volunteer basis.
DOCUMENTATION – Make sure to photo and post your progress #shieldtheworld so that it can inspire others.
